The Top 40 Male Film Lead Actors of all Time

[gturner]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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Good list, but I'd add

James Dean
Paul Newman
Clark Gable
Spencer Tracy
Gregory Peck
Henry Fonda
Kirk Douglas
Steve McQueen - coolest badass of all! Am I really the first person to mention him?

I'd add Toshire Mifune (Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, etc.) Clint Eastwood's most famous archetype, used in his Sergio Leone films, was the Yojimbo character.

I'd kick Kirk Douglas off the list just for brutally raping Natalie Wood and putting her in the hospital for a week, doing permanent serious physical damage (or so says Robert Downey Jr. - and as this week's Natalie Wood news has unfolded, it seems there's a tape of a statement that Robert Wagner threw her overboard in rage and said something like "f**k, let the bitch drown.")

[CorporalCaptain]

gturner wrote:

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I'd kick Kirk Douglas off the list just for brutally raping Natalie Wood and putting her in the hospital for a week, doing permanent serious physical damage (or so says Robert Downey Jr. - and as this week's Natalie Wood news has unfolded, it seems there's a tape of a statement that Robert Wagner threw her overboard in rage and said something like "f**k, let the bitch drown.")

I'm unaware that Robert Downey Jr. has been substantiated as being one of the people circulating the rumor about Kirk Douglas raping Natalie Wood. That Robert Downey Jr. himself is involved in circulating the rumor is itself, as far as I know, just a rumor.

[gturner]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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I'm unaware that Robert Downey Jr. has been substantiated as being one of the people circulating the rumor about Kirk Douglas raping Natalie Wood. That Robert Downey Jr. himself is involved in circulating the rumor is itself, as far as I know, just a rumor.

No, I'm pretty sure he outed his online identity to confirm the veracity of the rumor, saying it came straight from an actress he starred with in a certain movie, which turned out to be Natalie Wood's daughter. I was following that particular thread and got Natalie Wood's daughter's home phone number before he reconsidered and edited his comment.

He figured he was done for a long while to deal with the career fallout from posting the very brutal details of what Kirk Douglas had done, but it didn't seem to have many public ramifications. He still comments in between movies, and he left a really nice 9/11 tribute last week. His wife also comments there sometimes. I think he's one of the best and funniest writers on the web, even as a semi-anonymous commenter that everybody knows is RDJ. He writes from the heart like few can.

[CorporalCaptain]

gturner wrote:

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No, I'm pretty sure he outed his online identity to confirm the veracity of the rumor, saying it came straight from an actress he starred with in a certain movie, which turned out to be Natalie Wood's daughter. I was following that particular thread and got Natalie Wood's daughter's home phone number before he reconsidered and edited his comment.

He figured he was done for a long while to deal with the career fallout from posting the very brutal details of what Kirk Douglas had done, but it didn't seem to have many public ramifications. He still comments in between movies, and he left a really nice 9/11 tribute last week. His wife also comments there sometimes. I think he's one of the best and funniest writers on the web, even as a semi-anonymous commenter that everybody knows is RDJ. He writes from the heart like few can.

Citation please.

[gturner]

It's probably going to be in this one, but several pages in.

http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/20...celebrity.html

He posts as Himmmm, and yes, he got Natalie's daughter's permission to post what he did. I think it might be preceded by a hilarious post where he channels both Batman and Sherlock Holmes.

His comments on the Aurora shooting are in this one. Moving stuff.

http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/20...killed-at.html

9/11 tribute here.

http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/20...er-forget.html

[foxhot]

It sounds like Downey, Jr. (assuming he invented the Wood rumor) was engineering some ONION-style humor. I can appreciate that. (Makes my OP less WTF in a way, so the pressure's off me.) Even Christopher Walken was alleged to have said ''Look.....people drown all the time.''

For me, Wood's best moment as an actress were the last two minutes of WEST SIDE STORY. As good as REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE is, I wasn't as taken with her character in that, nor her all-time-best unforgettable roles in METEOR, THE CANDIDATE or BRAINSTORM. Meaning even if Bujold hadn't obliterated my top 40 all-time-best actresses, Wood wouldn't finalize them.

JTW wrote:

''This is a subject that I'd enjoy engaging in, but making it into a days-long, one-name-at-a-time project pretty much kills my interest.''

He's right, dammit. Time for responsive action.

39. Spencer Tracy
38. Steve McQueen

Funny thing is, I'm not even a Tracy fan. He picks sharper projects than most, however. I'm a fan of his Stanley Kramer productions especially.

[Mr Silver]

A lot of people (including myself) are going to list the same choices, none the less:

Paul Newman
Marlon Brando
James Stewart
Henry Fonda
Al Pacino
Sidney Poitier
Clint Eastwood
Charlton Heston
Jack Nicholson
John Wayne

[CorporalCaptain]

gturner wrote:

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It's probably going to be in this one, but several pages in.

http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/20...celebrity.html

He posts as Himmmm, and yes, he got Natalie's daughter's permission to post what he did. I think it might be preceded by a hilarious post where he channels both Batman and Sherlock Holmes.

His comments on the Aurora shooting are in this one. Moving stuff.

http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/20...killed-at.html

9/11 tribute here.

http://www.crazydaysandnights.net/20...er-forget.html

In other words, nothing that can substantiate the rumors.

[lurok]

McQueen was cool but really pretty limited as an actor.

Eastwood
Mitchum
Peck
Stewart (underrated)
Grant (effortless)
Fonda
Hackman (rarely if ever a bad performance)

Some actors I just enjoy even if movie sucks: Gibson, Russell, Washington. And a soft spot for Karl Malden and Udo Keir

[stj]

Douglas Fairbanks
Lon Chaney
Rudolph Valentino
Alec Guiness
William Powell
Edward G. Robinson
Gregory Peck
Burt Lancaster
Charles Laughton
Kenneth Branagh


I don't think anyone's thought of these candidates!

PS I think there's some intrinsic difficulty in the op standards. b&d are pretty much the same, but neither has any relationship at all to c&e!

After all, by c&e, we should nominate Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff and Anthony Hopkins as well as Peter Cushing.

[Captaindemotion]

1. Paul Newman

2. Marlon Brando.

3. Humphrey Bogart

4. Sean Connery

5. Robert DeNiro

6. Al Pacino

7. Cary Grant

8. Steve McQueen

9. Gene Hackman

10. Dustin Hoffman

Bubbling under, I would say are Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Mitchum (how the hell can anyone say he was one of the worst?!), Cagney and Jimmy Stewart.

I think it's too early to judge with many of today's stars but I do think that Sean Penn, Jeff Bridges and Tom Cruise have a good shout at being well-remembered in years to come.

Yes, I said Tom Cruise.

[Greg Cox]

stj wrote:

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After all, by c&e, we should nominate Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff and Anthony Hopkins as well as Peter Cushing.

I seriously considered nominating Karloff, who is one of my favorite actors, but decided to go with Cushing instead since the unspoken theme seemed to be heroic leading man types and Karloff, even when he got top billing, didn't play many "badass" roles.

Christopher Lee is another contender, but that struck me as too predictable after mentioning Cushing . . . .

I notice that Errol Flynn seems to be overlooked as well. Is swashbuckling not considered "badass" these days?

[foxhot]

STJ wrote:

''Douglas Fairbanks
Lon Chaney
Rudolph Valentino
Alec Guiness
William Powell
Edward G. Robinson
Gregory Peck
Burt Lancaster
Charles Laughton
Kenneth Branagh


I don't think anyone's thought of these candidates!''

You are right and wrong.....in my case, anyway. Between one and nine of them DID make it. But who......who?

McQueen may be the greatest actor with the smallest range. Anyone ever notice his facial similarity to Robert Reed's? I'm not even going to claim Schwarzenegger is a legitimate actor as his range is, um....unseen so far, but culturally he is justifiable and his talent for laughable line-delivery at least is unparallelled. Two examples from PREDATOR and TOTAL RECALL prove this theory:

''Hawkin!! Have Blain check tha peremitah and ron-day-voo at tha station house NOW!!!''

''Vy are yoo DOOING diss, Lori??''

My least favorite of his dialogue comes at the beginning of THE RUNNING MAN:

''Tell him to turn off da signal or it's all our heads!!''

The words were fine. It was his whining tone that killed my appreciation for the film's many remaining nuances.

Like Admiral M says, lots of us will be choosing identical icons in the end, but it's the order you choose them that will create tension before the inevitable triumphant freeze-frame and end credits. Still, 40 won't get everybody great in the door. My list is as subjective as anyone's and my true favorites are being saved for its final 17 picks. All I can say is the 1910s won't be represented but the 2000s may be.

[Greg Cox]

What's a little confusing is that the original post seems to conflate several different things: movie star, leading man, screen icon, great actor, and action hero. And while there may be a select few individuals who are all of the above, those are overlapping categories, not one thing.

[BennyRussel]

Greg Cox wrote:

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What's a little confusing is that the original post seems to conflate several different things: movie star, leading man, screen icon, great actor, and action hero. And while there may be a select few individuals who are all of the above, those are overlapping categories, not one thing.

That is what makes it a tougher list to make. Which is fun.

Anyway, here is my list of 40 listed alphabetically by first name.


1 Al Pacino
2 Arnold Schwarzenegger
3 Bill Murray
4 Bruce Willis
5 Cary Grant
6 Charlie Chaplin
7 Charlton Heston
8 Clint Eastwood
9 Daniel Day-Lewis
10 Denzel Washington
11 Dustin Hoffman
12 Eddie Murphy
13 Fred Astaire
14 Gene Kelly
15 George Clooney
16 Glenn Ford
17 Harrison Ford
18 Henry Fonda
19 Humphrey Bogart
20 Jack Lemmon
21 Jack Nicholson
22 Jackie Chan
23 James Cagney
24 James Stewart
25 Jerry Lewis
26 John Wayne
27 Kirk Douglas
28 Laurence Olivier
29 Marlon Brando
30 Paul Newman
31 Peter O'Toole
32 Richard Burton
33 Robert DeNiro
34 Robert Redford
35 Sean Penn
36 Sidney Poitier
37 Spencer Tracy
38 Steve McQueen
39 Sylvester Stallone
40 Tom Hanks